The Chromosome Game

by Hodder-Williams, Christopher

  *

  Nembrak said, ‘It’s all fixed when you’re ready. Trell.’

  ‘The Computer won’t know?’

  ‘It can’t. I’ve run a fresh cable direct from the mechanism of the orifice hatch to the electricity supply. The switch is behind the teaching machine unit in Cubicle E. You open and shut the orifice from there. I also wired … well in jargon it would be called a “virtual orifice” — in effect, something the computer thinks is the orifice — to the master panel of the Controller.’

  ‘An orifice that doesn’t really exist?’

  ‘It’s like they say someone feels about an amputated limb, Trell. They still feel it, but it isn’t there.’

  ‘Right. You’re saying we can work the real orifice independently from the Controller; and the Controller can work an imaginary orifice to its heart’s content, without realising that nothing is really happening?’

  ‘Not even in its nightmares.’

  ‘Okay fine, Nembrak. Don’t think I’m criticising … The whole idea is marvellous except the positioning of the control switch in Cubicle E is too dangerous … This meeting must be kept secret. Totally secure. If someone discovers that switch it’s curtains … Say, can you fix that dispenser? — I have a thirst like an alcoholic on the rampage.’

  ‘No way, Trell. Since we were cut down to one Special per month the Controller has kind of tightened up on regulations … And you just spoke one of the New Words.’

  “Alcoholic”.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Is it on the list compiled by Krand?’

  ‘I don’t know. He’s rapidly running out of paper.’

  ‘Just shows, Nembrak. These New Words are going to get in the syntax very fast.’

  ‘Well, Eagle knows who’s spreading them … Anyway, about tonight —’

  ‘You gave Eagle the details and timing of the meeting?’

  ‘Yes, all set. Where do you want that switch, Trell?’

  Trell did a rapid scan of the Recreation Area. ‘Wait a minute while we change the cassette in that thing. Play something real loud … Okay, this switch. It shouldn’t look like a switch, Nembrak. Maybe somewhere in the music room there’s a —’

  ‘— Got it! The electronic organ in there!’

  ‘One of the pedals or something?’

  ‘Two of the pedals, Trell. One for “open”; one for “close”. Who else plays the organ besides Eagle? You’ll need him up at the meeting. We want someone in there who plays anyway. Then it won’t look odd.’

  ‘What about Triumph?’ — Triumph of the Inventors’ Club.

  ‘I’m putting Triumph on guard at the orifice itself. We have a system of signals —’

  ‘— Okay, what about Cass?’

  ‘Right. Cass.’

  ‘Fine. You’d better brief him yourself, Nembrak … Can you do the rewiring in time?’

  ‘Easy.’

  ‘And what about if someone else starts playing the organ, and happens to use one of the fixed-up pedals?’

  ‘The pedals will only be in circuit when the computer’s wired up to the —’

  ‘— the ghost orifice, I get it. Are your two girls taking part?’

  ‘Fulda and Nicola will be posted outside the main dormitory areas. Fulda covers Alpha up to Delta; Nicola watches Echo, Foxtrot, Golf and Hotel.’

  ‘Let’s hope no one comes out of the Hotel at the wrong moment … Is the safety rope up?’

  ‘Krand found some parachute nylon —’

  ‘— Scorda’s watching us, back by the nets. Start an argument, Nembrak.’

  ‘Look, the British girl has never won at Wimbledon —’

  ‘— I tell you I saw it on tape. Wade we’re talking about, right?’

  ‘Sure. Virginia Wade. You’re thinking of Forest Hills —’

  ‘—Yeah? They’ve just closed Forest Hills; that must have been some tennis game. No courts.’

  Scorda said, ‘You guys really care if Wade has ever won that tournament?’

  Trell said, ‘Maybe you can settle the argument, then.’

  ‘This some kind of a dumb show?’

  Nembrak said, ‘Meaning what? Is it illegal to disagree around here?’

  ‘Oh, it’s legal.’ Scorda turned to Nembrak. ‘That’s a loud cassette you put on, all of a sudden.’

  Nembrak said, ‘Gee, I’m sorry if it’s getting on your nerves.’

  ‘It’s just I think I heard a line-call which you did not.’

  ‘Could we have that in English?’

  ‘Sure. Nembrak doesn’t know deuce from a back-hand lob.

  Trell said, ‘Still, Scorda, we all know when you are playing one of your sneak shots.’

  *

  Eagle was disturbed by Trell while preparing the most curious experiment that had ever occurred to him.

  Though not secretive by nature, Eagle had felt, during the preliminaries of this scientific probe, that any knowledge of it on the part of other people might be highly disturbing … especially as it was not possible, in engineering terms such as would evince an understanding nod from Nembrak the Inventor, to wholly account for the intuition that had guided him. Using naiveté to conceal his real intentions, therefore, he had approached Nembrak and asked for some electronic equipment — including a transistorised telephone. Taken item by item, the bits of gear he chose appeared to Nembrak perfectly straightforward. Had Nembrak put the Lego bits together in his own mind as Eagle had done before him, Nembrak himself would have raised his eyebrows prior to expressing, in typically Nembrak patois — light-hearted but precision-tooled — a penetrating interest in the entire list of components he handed over to Eagle when taken as a whole. To prevent this happening, Eagle had asked for them in small batches. In this way he had successfully thrown Nembrak off the scent.

  It being public knowledge among the incubants by now that Eagle used the fan-room — strictly this was known by the embossed legend on its door: ‘Valve Room’ — Eagle could work in there quite openly without arousing too much curiosity. Moreover the drone of the fans themselves, which were an essential of the finely-controlled air conditioning system, obliterated any telltale sounds that could have revealed prematurely what Eagle’s research was all about.

  Into the distilled atmosphere of intensive concentration came Trell. His omission to ask what on earth Eagle was doing was not merely due to tact; he was in a hurry and in need of practical assistance right away. Even if Eagle himself did not regard his own role as being a part of the Executive Group, Trell most certainly included him in such committee work and had, for a long time, spotted the value of involving Eagle in Operations.

  ‘Sorry to disturb you, Eagle, but you’re needed.’

  ‘I can see I won’t be able to convince you that I’m not.’

  ‘No way.’

  *

  Eagle transmitted, with his usual minimum change of expression, his sense of foreboding the moment he was confronted by Kelda in the Laser Arts Room. ‘Trell asked me to take you up aloft to F Deck, for the meeting you’ve planned. Trell is needed down here.’

  ‘Trouble?’

  Eagle had to tighten himself up to actually say it. For although he himself had been the one to spot the incipient seeds of violence he nevertheless found it hard to accept that the grotesque shoots had so abruptly appeared above the stinking soil of hate. So he said simply, ‘They beat up Helen-043. The moment Krand’s back was turned.’

  Kelda stood there, absolutely still. ‘But why?’

  ‘I think you know why.’

  ‘Helen is black.’

  Eagle couldn’t say anything.

  ‘My God.’ Kelda switched off the laser equipment and the hologram of The Lovers vanished in space. ‘Does Krand know?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then I wouldn’t like to be Sladey.’

  ‘Kelda, Krand isn’t even being allowed to decide for himself what action to take.’

  ‘I’m not with you.’

  ‘The Computer saw the e
pisode through television cameras and has decided to take its own action —’

  ‘— no doubt with its usual duplicity.’

  ‘Kelda, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Me too. This is a human situation — however inhumane.’

  ‘I agree. Krand must be the angriest man there is and our revered Sladey must be the picture of Dorian Grey. But I’m told that whatever has happened we mustn’t delay the meeting. It’s too important. Cass is all ready to work the organ pedals and the timing must be exact.’

  ‘But — I must go and comfort Helen.

  ‘You’re forgetting, Kelda: You trained the twins. They’re managing very well.’

  ‘Supposing they have to resort to the auto-nurses?’

  ‘They won’t.’

  ‘Where’s Trell now?’

  ‘With Helen.’

  ‘This is … horrible.’

  ‘They weren’t exaggerating when they mentioned the Ku Klux Klan. I didn’t believe it. I’m beginning to now. But if the Controlling Computer punishes Sladey and his group, it won’t be conventional in the way we understand it.’

  ‘I realise that. And it could blow right back.’

  ‘Exactly. That thing is a kinky Frankenstein and acts like some demented DJ … Calls the tune, then changes it when it wants to promote some other album. That keeps Sladey on the hook. He’s a coward anyway so he has to play all the Computer’s favourite records. It’s difficult for me to work out what it has ready on the turntable by doing this.’

  Kelda said, ‘It’ll give it more power over Sladey in the long run.’

  ‘That’s what I think. Which means that Sladey will have more power over us.’

  *

  Krand murmured quietly to Trell, ‘Helen wants to speak with you alone.’

  ‘Right. Where will you be?’

  ‘I’ll see you up at the meeting … Sakini? — Inikas? … Can you break off a moment?’

  The twins nodded and left the area.

  Helen turned painfully on the couch and looked up at Trell. There was no self pity. ‘Trell? — I’m not … ugly, am I?’

  ‘Ugly! Who told you that?’

  ‘I want to know.’

  ‘Helen, do you think Krand is blind, or something?’

  She managed a wan smile. ‘Maybe just colourblind.’

  ‘Exactly. He knows what matters and what doesn’t. And so do I.’

  ‘Trell, don’t you see why I’m asking your opinion?’

  ‘Yes. I’m in love with a white girl.’

  Helen said hesitantly, ‘I know it’s awkward to compare people but —’

  ‘— Helen. The very last thing Kelda would want would be for me to be immune to beauty in its own right. We neither of us think that way —’

  ‘—I shouldn’t have put you on the spot.’

  ‘Look, just because I’m tongue-tied about somebody else’s girl, it doesn’t mean I can’t be asked You’re a painter’s dream.’

  ‘From now on I’m not letting Krand dirty his hands with a black girl when there are lots of white ones.’

  ‘What blood group are you, Helen?’

  ‘Group O. Why?’

  ‘Me too. If you needed my blood or I needed yours, they’d match.’

  ‘Okay. Thanks, Trell.’

  ‘What the heck you thanking me for? Thank your Maker you look like that, that’s all.’

  The moment Eagle entered the Vacuum Ejector Chute something immediately made him think of the experiment he was preparing down below in ZD-One. To Kelda he simply said, ‘You and Trell found this place?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you realise what it is?’

  ‘Obviously you do.’

  Eagle fingered the silt that overlaid the vacuum pump. ‘It’s an escape chamber — a Davies Escape. At least, it was.’

  Kelda was watching him intently. ‘Eagle, does nothing surprise you? — all this … antiquity?’

  He didn’t seem to hear her. ‘What’s that plaque over the adjacent bulkhead say? I can’t read it.’

  Kelda tried to keep her voice down to Eagle’s measured tone. ‘It took Krand and Trell quite a long time to decipher it. As you see, it’s … incredibly corroded.’ She was hoping that Eagle would pick her up on the word “incredibly”. Somehow, a reaction from Eagle would have helped to relieve some of her own tension. For emotionally she was in a turmoil. Here, in a small, steel-lined room, she had first made love. Now it was eerie … charged. Yes, ‘charged’ was the word. But Eagle, intent on examining every detail of the place, wouldn’t budge. So she said, ‘The plaque across the way reads Assembly Lounge.’ — and looked at him crystal-eyed.

  ‘You want me to … say something?’

  ‘Desperately.’

  ‘Then I’ll say it: I’m very frightened.’

  Thank you.’

  By the time Trell and Krand joined them in that desolate room Eagle had managed to whip up some humour, though it was almost as if he’d been rehearsing it. ‘Welcome to the Desert Inn. Hit the jackpot and you go straight over the side. And all this time I’ve been complaining about there being no swimming pool.’

  *

  There was a long silence when Krand had finished his report. Eventually it was Trell who said, ‘I think it’s time we asked Eagle what he makes of all this.’

  Eagle said, ‘Is that why you really got me up here? — How did you get this print-out anyway?’

  Krand said, ‘I was called into the Computer Room. Nothing was said aloud. I spoke to the Controller several times but it wouldn’t reply. Suddenly there was a burst from the printer and I got the document. At first I thought I was expected to take it with me. So I ripped it out of the machine. As soon as I’d done so, I heard the automatic locks on the steel doors as they engaged in the ‘Systems Locked’ position. And I was simply told that until I’d put the print-out through the shredder I wouldn’t be allowed out of the room.’

  Eagle said, ‘But you’re holding something back.’

  ‘It’s because of what was on the print-out.’

  ‘Which you haven’t got because you had to shred it?’

  ‘Correct.’ Krand hesitated. ‘You see, I think the whole thing was a trick to make you all disbelieve me.’

  Trell and Kelda exchanged a glance. ‘Why would we do that?’ asked Kelda. ‘You’ve never told lies.’

  ‘Okay. It was just plain incredible. I was trying to get the Controller to explain why this part of the ship seemed so impossibly old. At first it made out that our bit had been rebuilt. I said I didn’t buy that: the whole of this section is warped out of true; no one in their right senses would renovate just one deck of a derelict boat — they’d build another one. So then came the print-out … I mean, about our part of the ship being okay and this part being anything but okay: We’re supposed to believe that there’s an ailment called Metal Disease, and that this disease will gradually spread until our own deck is infected. And I know damn-well it sounds as if I’m making it up, what that fiendish machine dreamed up … because I know it will deny having told me such a thing if someone else interrogates it. It more or less said so. It wants to implant mistrust among us all.’

  Eagle said immediately, ‘Krand. We’re all friends here. You’re letting that thing get under your skin. Look. Let’s take this “Metal Disease” face value, to begin with. Obviously, a disease is spread either by bacteria or a virus. Such organisms attack living cells and nothing else. Metal doesn’t live in any sense; though it does “die” in the end if it becomes radioactive, because it decays at a certain rate and turns into another element. If it does, it gives off huge amounts of radiation at the same time; and if that were happening we’d all of us be seriously ill — probably dying.’ He scraped a few flakes of reddish grit off the bulkhead. We all know what this is: iron oxide. Not another element: merely the salt of corroded iron in the steel. Shall I go on?’

  Kelda managed a little smile. She had never heard Eagle delivering such a lecture. It was so concise; so
information-intensive. For all the world Eagle was addressing them as if he were a learned professor of mature years — not a young teenager who, not so very long ago, had still been fooling around with Lego.

  Eagle continued, ‘The only “Metal Disease” that’s possible takes a very long time to “kill” the metal — so long, that the only way of measuring it is by its so-called Half-Life. And even then, it doesn’t rust and corrode through chemical action. It physically changes and becomes a different substance altogether. Whatever was diseased up here was People. I’ve been around the entire ship — the bits that are still possible to inspect, anyway. I’d say that there were seven or eight hundred people aboard. There are no bodies so they must have all been ejected from the ship through this cubicle — the one we’re in now. The idea — however hard it is to believe — must have been so that people did not spread diseases through the rotting of their own carcases. But what was the point? Every indication is that the victims starved to death. They would all have run out of food at the same time. So the stronger lived slightly longer than the weaker ones. When we have time, we might be able to get some of this from the ship’s log. So it’s safe to assume that the Controller doesn’t know that any such log exists.’

  Trell: ‘I’ve leafed through some of those logs. There’s masses of stuff kept in incredible detail.’

  Krand: ‘Any clues that relate to what Eagle has just been saying?’

  Trell: ‘Plenty — now I come to think of it. But it will be one helluver job to go through it all. The ink has faded — almost completely gone in places. Some of the pages have simply rotted away.’

  Eagle: ‘The vacuum in here wouldn’t have held once the air-seals disintegrated.’

  Krand: ‘What sort of timescale are we talking about?’

  Eagle ‘Very difficult to assess that. The corrosion in this place would take a bit of explaining. By any normal standards we must have been alive, that’s what I can’t figure out properly.’

  Trell: ‘That experiment you’re doing down in the Fan Room: Is it anything to do with that?’

  Eagle: ‘Possibly. I’ll need time.’

  Kelda: ‘Just how much of that have we got?’

  Krand: ‘We ought to let Eagle go on till he’s finished.’